The first time my Grandma Harlow let me look at the green book we called, “The Big Zike Book”, I was enthralled with the idea of who my ancestors were. I was fascinated by learning how to find out what gets left behind from someone’s life. What are the parts they want to pass down, what are the parts that we want to know as descendants, that maybe they did not want to be passed down?

(The featured image is one of my Grandma Harlow and my Uncle Jerry, both among my ancestors now. ❤ )

As I stepped onto the beginning of the pagan part of my path, it just seemed obvious to me that we can commune with our ancestors, or at the very least, revere them. How often do we think about or talk about a deceased loved one, “keeping an eye” on us? How often do we say a quick hello, if only in our head, to an important ancestor when something reminds us of them?

It’s something we still keep with us from our ancestors, without really thinking about why.

The big draw, for me, to family history research is seeing what we can infer or piece together through documents. Marriage licenses, birth records, church records- all of these can help us form ideas about the kind of people we come from.

I use genealogy in my spiritual practice in the same way I use research to learn about the gods. Learning about specific ancestors helps me visualize the kind of person they might have been in life, and that helps me choose who to build a spiritual relationship with and how to go about it. Learning about our ancestors is an act of remembrance. What is remembered, yet lives. I use genealogy as an act of devotion, of honor, for my ancestors.

If you want to start learning about your ancestors, the first thing you need to do is write down what you know about your ancestors off the top of your head. Get a piece of paper and write your name at the top. Under that write the names of your parents. Under those names, write the names of your grandparents. So on and so forth. If you can, talk to your parents or grandparents about their parents or grandparents. That’s an amazing start, but I know lots of folks don’t have living parents or grandparents, and I know folks who do have living older family members, there are a million reasons they may not be able to talk to them about family history.

So, the next step is picking a name and looking it up. The internet makes this part A LOT simpler than it used to be and I love it (although, there’s more due diligence involved, but that’s a given on the internet, honestly.). The best free website to begin genealogy research is https://www.familysearch.org/ This site is run by the Latter Day Saints, but because of their baptismal practices, it’s definitely comprehensive.

I’m currently working matrilineally on mine, because I am focused right now, spiritually, on the mothers and grandmothers of my mother’s line. I want to get to know these women, to get some sense of who they were and where they fit into my spiritual practice. Building these relationships with our ancestors and getting to know them through meditation and journeying relies a lot of our own personal practices and the things we learn from these meditations and journeys, and everyone’s mileage may vary.